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magic are simply shocking. The magic a living being? Spellwords a way of communicating with this being? Nevery, you must stop him from thinking about such things. We have enough to worry about at the moment with these strangers lurking around the Dawn Palace and these unexplained attacks on the people of Wellmet. You know as well as I do that something magical must be afoot, for people to be turned intoliving statues covered with dust! I have spent the last weeks poring over the historical records, seeking a precedent for this kind of magical attack. I have found nothing. It is a very great concern.
    But about young Conn. I can see that he feels badly for causing us so much unease with his strange ideas, and with the Underlord troubles last year. He is standing very quiet and subdued beside the meeting room door, waiting as I write this to you; I offered him a chair, but he refused to sit.
    I am afraid we cannot readmit him to the academicos at this time. His ideas are too unsettling to the other students. My new apprentice, Keeston, for example, has been talking in mostalarming ways about the nature of magic. We cannot allow Conn to take classes with the other apprentices. And even if we do readmit him, he has no locus magicalicus and will never become a wizard.
    It’s a shame, really. He seems a good boy, despite his odd ideas and the trouble he caused us last year.
    Yours,
Brumbee A., Magister,
Master of Wellmet Academicos

CHAPTER 3
    I gave Brumbee’s letter to Nevery and he spelled it open.
    “Hmmm,” he said, reading. “He won’t readmit you to the academicos, Conn.”
    Oh. I didn’t say anything.
    Nevery gave me a keen look from under his eyebrows. “Well, boy?” he asked.

    Not really well, no. I wasn’ta gutterboy anymore, and I needed to be going to school.
    “I will give you lessons,” Nevery said.
    All right.
    I sat up late in the study reading Nevery’s grimoire, looking for the spellword the magic had spoken. No luck. Maybe I could get Keeston to nick some books from the academicos library so I could keep looking.
     
    For my first pyrotechnic experiment, I’d nicked tourmalifine and the slowsilver from Nevery’s workroom. To do more experiments I’d need more pyrotechnic materials, and that meant finding somebody in the Twilight to sell them to me, and that meant getting my hands on some money. Nevery wouldn’t give it to me, sure as sure. I wondered if Rowan would.
    The problem with visiting the Dawn Palace, where Rowan lived, was that the guards, especially their captain, Kerrn, didn’t like me verymuch. The first time I’d been there I’d stolen the jewel from the duchess’s necklace because it was my locus stone. The duchess didn’t like me much, either. If I showed up without an invitation, they’d be likely to slap me in a cell and fill me up with phlister in order to find out what I was up to.
    Because I’d been a thief, I was good at getting in and out of places without being seen. I went over the wall at the back of the palace, then, evading more guards than usual, snuck across the formal gardens, through one of the terrace doors, and into the ballroom, which was empty. Rowan’s rooms were up two floors and down at the eastern end of the building. I stayed in the servants’ hallways, picked a lock to go through an empty room, then eased out into a hallway, down two more doors, and into Rowan’s rooms. She had a study, a dressing room, a sitting room, and her bedroom, which had a wide bed in it, and pillowy, comfortable chairs.
    She wasn’t there. I fetched a book off her bookshelves, flopped onto one of the chairs in thebedroom, and settled down to wait.
    I looked up later when Rowan came in. “Have you been waiting long?” she asked. She was wearing a black wormsilk dress and a student’s robe; she’d been at the academicos, where she studied magic, even though she wasn’t a wizard. She was the duchess’s daughter and needed to know about magical things. Her red hair